We live in a world where people are divided into all kinds of groups based on nationality, religion, age, gender, race, and other groupings. Because of this, it is easy to look at others, not as individuals, but according to the group to which they belong. This prevents us from seeing the person for who he or she really is. We start making assumptions about the person based upon what we think about his or her group. This causes many conflicts. This is why it is very important to learn to respect others, even if they are different than we are. A leader must deal with diverse people under him or her. Good leaders learn to balance the different opinions and interests of the people they lead. Even parents—and all parents are leaders—must deal with differences among their children, who are boys and girls, older and younger, and different from one another in interests, talents, and personality. To take on any leadership role in life, we must learn to respect and tolerate differences.
Respect
As we grow up, we long for the respect of others and want to show respect to others ourselves. Respect is showing regard for the worth of someone or something. It takes the following three forms: • Respect for myself • Respect for others • Respect for all forms of life, for the environment that sustains them and for human-made things as well.
Respecting myself requires treating my life — in both its spiritual and physical dimensions — as having value. That’s why it is wrong to engage in self-destructive behavior such as drug or alcohol abuse. In fact, if we don’t respect and love ourselves, it is very hard to respect and love others.
Respecting others requires that we treat all human beings — even those whom we dislike — as having dignity, rights and value equal to our own. That is the essence of the Golden Rule — “Treat others as you want to be treated.”
Respecting the whole complex web of life prohibits cruelty to animals and calls us to act with care toward the natural environment, the fragile ecosystem on which all life depends. It includes respect for our home, our school, our own room and the responsibility connected with taking care of those things.
We are meant to learn how to respect others in our families. We learn by the way our parents treat us and by the way we see them treating others. They teach us not to hit our siblings and to be polite to visitors. Most parents are concerned with teaching their children to behave well, have good manners, and treat people respectfully. They know that courtesy and good manners enable people to get along with each other and resolve problems in a peaceful way. If we are rude, we can expect our parents to teach us a better way. In word and deed, our parents also teach us to respect property. They teach us to handle things with care and not to take things that belong to someone else.
All this is to help us to develop the right heart towards others, to help us understand that when we show disrespect towards someone, we are saying, “You are not worth much. Your thoughts and feelings are of little importance.”
We naturally will show respect when we realize that we are all part of a common human heritage, whatever our particular family background, race, nationality or religion. Each person has unique value. Once we understand this, we could never mistreat or abuse one another, but would treat others with the respect we would like to be shown ourselves.
Tolerance of Differences
People who feel very deeply about something often find it difficult to respect those who see things differently. We believe that we are right, which means those who disagree with us must be wrong. In such cases we may even come to regard such people as our enemies, not because they have done anything to us personally but just because their beliefs are not the same as ours. We may convince ourselves that their set of beliefs is not only wrong but dangerous, and we may see them as enemies of society.
This is why throughout history, religious people have fought and even killed each other. On both sides of such conflicts, one could find sincere, moral people who nevertheless could not tolerate each other's points of view. Fortunately, in many countries a tradition of religious tolerance has developed so that people are not discriminated against or punished today as much as they were in the past, for what they believe .
However, religious persecution of those who are different continues. In fact, conversion away from the established or major religion of a region or country is punishable by death in some countries. This is why President George Bush of the United States, had to ask Afghanistan not to issue the death penalty to a man who converted from Islam to Christianity.
Tolerating differing opinions actually strengthens a society, as evidenced by the growth of democracies over the past several hundred years. Democracy is based upon tolerance of differing opinions, recognition of universal rights regardless of differences, and majority rule coupled with protection of minorities. Democratic societies tend to prosper as the human potential within them in unleashed due to these freedoms, protections and tolerance of differences. Still, there are limits to tolerance. One of the problems of modern democracies is their tendency to place little or no limits on what they will tolerate in the name of freedom of expression. To more conservative countries and to conservative people within the democracies themselves, tolerance is sometimes taken to an extreme degree, compromising morality.
Empathy
A person who takes a pointed stick to poke a baby bird should do it to himself first to feel how it hurts. — African proverb One of the ways we can develop and deepen our respect and tolerance for other people is through empathy. When we empathize with someone, we can understand the way he or she feels and thinks. We may not necessarily agree, but we can at least understand and see the world through his or her eyes. There is a wise American Indian saying: “Do not judge another person until you have walked a mile in his moccasins.”
Learning to empathize is not easy. It is a challenge to our heart to grow and extend itself out to embrace others. It means developing some kind of emotional connection to them. Here are some questions we can ask ourselves in order to more deeply understand another person's situation. (We should stop to ask ourselves these questions especially when we are in disagreement with the other person.):
1. How does the person feel? 2. How would I feel if I were in that situation? 3. How would I want other people to act if I were that person?
Empathy leads to understanding and compassion. When we seek to understand and appreciate differences, we can avoid destructive conflict and negative feelings. Empathy leads us to ask ourselves, “If I were in that person's situation, how would I want to be treated?” Most likely we would answer in one or more of the following ways:
1. I would want to be treated as a person with value and not be used by others. 2. I would want to be treated with care, not violence. 3. I would want to be treated as an individual, not just as a member of a certain category of persons.
Generalizations
Point number 3 above brings up the issue of making generalizations and stereotyping people according to the group to which they belong. We noted in the beginning of the chapter that doing this may lead to conflict if we fail to respect and tolerate the differences between groups.
In one sense generalizing is unavoidable. The first time we meet someone from a particular school, country or religious group, we will probably form a general impression of what such people are like because of this person. This is why it is important for a person to behave sensitively when he or she goes abroad. When we meet a foreigner, whether we realize it or not, we tend to see him or her as a representative of his or her country and judge the country accordingly. If we have a bad experience with that person, we will probably assume that everyone from that country is like him or her. If later we have the opportunity to meet others from that country, we may discover that the first person was not really a good representative, and we will modify our image of the country accordingly.
The problem is that uncorrected generalizations can harden into stereotypes — oversimplified and rigid images which are often wrong and/or exaggerated. Stereotypes usually contain a grain of truth, but it is only a grain, not at all the whole truth about the person. Stereotyping is the result of intellectual laziness and prejudice. A person cannot be bothered to learn the complete facts and instead relies upon the secondhand opinions of others without checking their accuracy. He or she accepts these opinions because they conform to his or her prejudices.
Stereotypes sometimes can be favorable (“All Englishmen are gentlemen”) or amusing (“Scotsmen have deep pockets and short arms”). Yet they can also be malicious (“Jews are miserly”).
Malicious stereotypes may be due to an attitude of racial or national superiority combined with ignorance. Negative stereotypes often are made by people out of fear of the unknown and dislike of those who are different. Such people typically will refuse to acknowledge evidence that doesn't fit the stereotype they have made of a particular group. People who do not conform to the stereotype may be hated even more than those who do fit it, because they have proven that the stereotype is a lie and so they have challenged people's assumptions.
Prejudice
Stereotyping leads to prejudicial attitudes towards groups of people. Prejudice means to make a judgment about someone or something before the truth is known about that particular individual. Because of prejudice, a person can be judged guilty, not because of the facts of a situation, but simply because of what group he or she belongs to. This attitude has resulted in the inhumane treatment of people over and over again throughout history.
For a hundred years, even after slavery was ended, African-Americans were subjected to great mistreatment in the United States because of prejudice. In Nazi Germany, anti-Semitism finally led to the Holocaust, wherein Jews were killed in concentration camps simply because all Jews were thought to be conspiring against the government and so were dangerous to the state. The tribal slaughter in Burundi and Rwanda is another example in the sorry history of prejudice and intolerance. Prejudice is usually passed on in the family from parents to children. Charged with emotion, prejudice usually has no rational basis. Prejudice can be transmitted through the media and fanned by politicians trying to curry favor with the electorate by attacking an unpopular minority. Prejudice and stereotypes are sometimes spread through ethnic jokes and slurs. Persons who engage in such "humor" may tell themselves that what they are doing is okay as long as there is no one from the targeted group present to hear it. But in speaking this way, and by listening to and laughing at such jokes, a poisonous atmosphere of disrespect and intolerance toward members of that group is created and spread.
Since prejudice represents a fundamental lack of respect and tolerance, it is harmful both to those people who practice it (it is narrow and unfair and may lead them to do abusive things) and to those who are victims of the prejudice (since they may be subject to abuse). It is the responsibility of each person to examine the ideas and viewpoints inherited from his family and society and determine how accurate they are. We should constantly be our on guard against absorbing stereotypes about groups of people and being prejudiced against them. We must constantly be looking into our hearts and asking ourselves how much do we really know about various groups of people before we start forming opinions about them. This is an important step on the way to learning to respect and tolerate others who are different from us but who nevertheless are fellow human beings worthy of fair and decent treatment.
Questions for Reflection
1. Define the following words:
Respect
Tolerance
Empathy
Stereotype
Prejudice
2. How does developing empathy help us to have respect for others?
3. Why is respecting oneself essential to respecting others?
4. Are there limits to tolerance? What are they? Give some concrete examples.
5. Why do we often show disrespect towards those we disagree with?
6. How do you want to be treated? Do you treat others that way?
7. Do you hold any prejudices or stereotypes?
8. Is there a difference between generalizing and stereotyping? If so, what?
9. Why do you think people often form opinions about people and things before they know all the facts?
10. Can you identify any stereotypes and prejudices that you have heard either in your family, at school or elsewhere?
Exercise: "Stereotypes and Prejudices"
Think of a group of people about whom you hold negative beliefs and feelings. List those beliefs and feelings. Then try to remember where you learned all of these things. Are your beliefs based in truth? Where did your ideas about this group come from? Are these the kinds of ideas that you would want to pass on to others? Why or why not? No single group of people is completely bad, no matter how we may feel about them. What good points can you identify in this group of people?
Reflection Exercise
Why should we respect all people and not just those we feel are “deserving” of our respect?
Introduction
Table of Contents
A leader must deal with diverse people under him or her. Good leaders learn to balance the different opinions and interests of the people they lead. Even parents—and all parents are leaders—must deal with differences among their children, who are boys and girls, older and younger, and different from one another in interests, talents, and personality. To take on any leadership role in life, we must learn to respect and tolerate differences.
Respect
As we grow up, we long for the respect of others and want to show respect to others ourselves. Respect is showing regard for the worth of someone or something. It takes the following three forms:• Respect for myself
• Respect for others
• Respect for all forms of life, for the environment that sustains them and for human-made things as well.
Respecting myself requires treating my life — in both its spiritual and physical dimensions — as having value. That’s why it is wrong to engage in self-destructive behavior such as drug or alcohol abuse. In fact, if we don’t respect and love ourselves, it is very hard to respect and love others.
Respecting others requires that we treat all human beings — even those whom we dislike — as having dignity, rights and value equal to our own. That is the essence of the Golden Rule — “Treat others as you want to be treated.”
Respecting the whole complex web of life prohibits cruelty to animals and calls us to act with care toward the natural environment, the fragile ecosystem on which all life depends. It includes respect for our home, our school, our own room and the responsibility connected with taking care of those things.
We are meant to learn how to respect others in our families. We learn by the way our parents treat us and by the way we see them treating others. They teach us not to hit our siblings and to be polite to visitors. Most parents are concerned with teaching their children to behave well, have good manners, and treat people respectfully. They know that courtesy and good manners enable people to get along with each other and resolve problems in a peaceful way. If we are rude, we can expect our parents to teach us a better way. In word and deed, our parents also teach us to respect property. They teach us to handle things with care and not to take things that belong to someone else.
All this is to help us to develop the right heart towards others, to help us understand that when we show disrespect towards someone, we are saying, “You are not worth much. Your thoughts and feelings are of little importance.”
We naturally will show respect when we realize that we are all part of a common human heritage, whatever our particular family background, race, nationality or religion. Each person has unique value. Once we understand this, we could never mistreat or abuse one another, but would treat others with the respect we would like to be shown ourselves.
Tolerance of Differences
People who feel very deeply about something often find it difficult to respect those who see things differently. We believe that we are right, which means those who disagree with us must be wrong. In such cases we may even come to regard such people as our enemies, not because they have done anything to us personally but just because their beliefs are not the same as ours. We may convince ourselves that their set of beliefs is not only wrong but dangerous, and we may see them as enemies of society.This is why throughout history, religious people have fought and even killed each other. On both sides of such conflicts, one could find sincere, moral people who nevertheless could not tolerate each other's points of view. Fortunately, in many countries a tradition of religious tolerance has developed so that people are not discriminated against or punished today as much as they were in the past, for what they believe .
However, religious persecution of those who are different continues. In fact, conversion away from the established or major religion of a region or country is punishable by death in some countries. This is why President George Bush of the United States, had to ask Afghanistan not to issue the death penalty to a man who converted from Islam to Christianity.
Tolerating differing opinions actually strengthens a society, as evidenced by the growth of democracies over the past several hundred years. Democracy is based upon tolerance of differing opinions, recognition of universal rights regardless of differences, and majority rule coupled with protection of minorities. Democratic societies tend to prosper as the human potential within them in unleashed due to these freedoms, protections and tolerance of differences.
Still, there are limits to tolerance. One of the problems of modern democracies is their tendency to place little or no limits on what they will tolerate in the name of freedom of expression. To more conservative countries and to conservative people within the democracies themselves, tolerance is sometimes taken to an extreme degree, compromising morality.
Empathy
A person who takes a pointed stick to poke a baby bird should do it to himself first to feel how it hurts. — African proverb
One of the ways we can develop and deepen our respect and tolerance for other people is through empathy. When we empathize with someone, we can understand the way he or she feels and thinks. We may not necessarily agree, but we can at least understand and see the world through his or her eyes. There is a wise American Indian saying: “Do not judge another person until you have walked a mile in his moccasins.”
Learning to empathize is not easy. It is a challenge to our heart to grow and extend itself out to embrace others. It means developing some kind of emotional connection to them. Here are some questions we can ask ourselves in order to more deeply understand another person's situation. (We should stop to ask ourselves these questions especially when we are in disagreement with the other person.):
1. How does the person feel?
2. How would I feel if I were in that situation?
3. How would I want other people to act if I were that person?
Empathy leads to understanding and compassion. When we seek to understand and appreciate differences, we can avoid destructive conflict and negative feelings. Empathy leads us to ask ourselves, “If I were in that person's situation, how would I want to be treated?” Most likely we would answer in one or more of the following ways:
1. I would want to be treated as a person with value and not be used by others.
2. I would want to be treated with care, not violence.
3. I would want to be treated as an individual, not just as a member of a certain category of persons.
Generalizations
Point number 3 above brings up the issue of making generalizations and stereotyping people according to the group to which they belong. We noted in the beginning of the chapter that doing this may lead to conflict if we fail to respect and tolerate the differences between groups.In one sense generalizing is unavoidable. The first time we meet someone from a particular school, country or religious group, we will probably form a general impression of what such people are like because of this person. This is why it is important for a person to behave sensitively when he or she goes abroad. When we meet a foreigner, whether we realize it or not, we tend to see him or her as a representative of his or her country and judge the country accordingly. If we have a bad experience with that person, we will probably assume that everyone from that country is like him or her. If later we have the opportunity to meet others from that country, we may discover that the first person was not really a good representative, and we will modify our image of the country accordingly.
The problem is that uncorrected generalizations can harden into stereotypes — oversimplified and rigid images which are often wrong and/or exaggerated. Stereotypes usually contain a grain of truth, but it is only a grain, not at all the whole truth about the person. Stereotyping is the result of intellectual laziness and prejudice. A person cannot be bothered to learn the complete facts and instead relies upon the secondhand opinions of others without checking their accuracy. He or she accepts these opinions because they conform to his or her prejudices.
Stereotypes sometimes can be favorable (“All Englishmen are gentlemen”) or amusing (“Scotsmen have deep pockets and short arms”). Yet they can also be malicious (“Jews are miserly”).
Malicious stereotypes may be due to an attitude of racial or national superiority combined with ignorance. Negative stereotypes often are made by people out of fear of the unknown and dislike of those who are different. Such people typically will refuse to acknowledge evidence that doesn't fit the stereotype they have made of a particular group. People who do not conform to the stereotype may be hated even more than those who do fit it, because they have proven that the stereotype is a lie and so they have challenged people's assumptions.
Prejudice
Stereotyping leads to prejudicial attitudes towards groups of people. Prejudice means to make a judgment about someone or something before the truth is known about that particular individual. Because of prejudice, a person can be judged guilty, not because of the facts of a situation, but simply because of what group he or she belongs to. This attitude has resulted in the inhumane treatment of people over and over again throughout history.For a hundred years, even after slavery was ended, African-Americans were subjected to great mistreatment in the United States because of prejudice. In Nazi Germany, anti-Semitism finally led to the Holocaust, wherein Jews were killed in concentration camps simply because all Jews were thought to be conspiring against the government and so were dangerous to the state. The tribal slaughter in Burundi and Rwanda is another example in the sorry history of prejudice and intolerance.
Prejudice is usually passed on in the family from parents to children. Charged with emotion, prejudice usually has no rational basis. Prejudice can be transmitted through the media and fanned by politicians trying to curry favor with the electorate by attacking an unpopular minority. Prejudice and stereotypes are sometimes spread through ethnic jokes and slurs. Persons who engage in such "humor" may tell themselves that what they are doing is okay as long as there is no one from the targeted group present to hear it. But in speaking this way, and by listening to and laughing at such jokes, a poisonous atmosphere of disrespect and intolerance toward members of that group is created and spread.
Since prejudice represents a fundamental lack of respect and tolerance, it is harmful both to those people who practice it (it is narrow and unfair and may lead them to do abusive things) and to those who are victims of the prejudice (since they may be subject to abuse). It is the responsibility of each person to examine the ideas and viewpoints inherited from his family and society and determine how accurate they are. We should constantly be our on guard against absorbing stereotypes about groups of people and being prejudiced against them. We must constantly be looking into our hearts and asking ourselves how much do we really know about various groups of people before we start forming opinions about them. This is an important step on the way to learning to respect and tolerate others who are different from us but who nevertheless are fellow human beings worthy of fair and decent treatment.
Questions for Reflection
1. Define the following words:2. How does developing empathy help us to have respect for others?
3. Why is respecting oneself essential to respecting others?
4. Are there limits to tolerance? What are they? Give some concrete examples.
5. Why do we often show disrespect towards those we disagree with?
6. How do you want to be treated? Do you treat others that way?
7. Do you hold any prejudices or stereotypes?
8. Is there a difference between generalizing and stereotyping? If so, what?
9. Why do you think people often form opinions about people and things before they know all the facts?
10. Can you identify any stereotypes and prejudices that you have heard either in your family, at school or elsewhere?
Exercise: "Stereotypes and Prejudices"
Think of a group of people about whom you hold negative beliefs and feelings. List those beliefs and feelings. Then try to remember where you learned all of these things. Are your beliefs based in truth? Where did your ideas about this group come from? Are these the kinds of ideas that you would want to pass on to others? Why or why not? No single group of people is completely bad, no matter how we may feel about them. What good points can you identify in this group of people?Reflection Exercise
Why should we respect all people and not just those we feel are “deserving” of our respect?